Everyone is keen to bankroll Alibaba today but just three years ago early-stage investors such as Silver Lake faced scepticism about investing in the Chinese ecommerce giant.

Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba is a market superstar but back in 2011 when US technology private equity firm Silver Lake first invested in the company, it wasn't such an easy sell.

Back then, the company founded by former English school teacher Jack Ma caused controversy when it transferred ownership of online payment platform Alipay to another company controlled by Ma, without the knowledge of major shareholder Yahoo.